Sonntag, 8. November 2015

A Swedish birding group monitored the spectacular migration at
Besh Barmag for a few days during the week 25-30 October. The group was
from the youth committee of Swedish BirdLife on an initiative and
leadership by me. We also met up with a local NGO, Nature Friends, that
joined us for a day trip to Shirvan Nationalpark and also for dinner in
Baku. We used a private home stay in the village of Qala Alty, about 30
mins driving northwest from Besh Barmag.

Swedish birder in steppe surroundings at Besh

In
Besh Barmag we used the observation point from previous field studies
(about 5 km north of the shops and cafés below the rock) and tried to
count all migrating birds from dawn till lunch. The migration corridor
is several kilometers wide and hundreds of passerines pass every minute
but we got a fair grip of the numbers. Easily quarter of a million birds
passed during our three field days 26-28 Oct with the majority being
Starlings (nearly 100.000 on both 27 and 28 Oct) and also tens of
thousands of larks (12.900 Calandra Larks on 27 Oct) and corvids. Also
in their thousands were Pygmy Cormorants, dabbling ducks and Corn
Buntings. Among the many highlights on migration were late records of
Black-winged Pratincole (2), Blue-cheeked Bee-eater (2), a Short-toed
Eagle and hundreds of Ruddy Shelducks, Great White Egrets and Short-toed
Larks. .

​​1000+ Calandra Larks resting on the steppe in addition to the thousands on migration

Spoonbill

Searching through the steppe areas,
coastal bush lands and marshes, the rubbish tip and the beach was
equally exciting, if not even more so. With migration going on most of
the day and lots of birds also resting, its a conflict of interest...
Resident in the area during our days were 40+ Black Vultures, 5 Imperial
Eagles, a 1cy Steppe Eagle, some 60 Little Bustards, 1000+ Caspian
Gulls (among which we found a 1cy Great Black-headed Gull by scanning
the photos afterwards...) and in the bush land many Red-breasted
Flycatchers, Chiffchaffs, two Mountain Chiffchaffs, Moustached
Warblers, hemprichii Stonechats and Bearded and Long-tailed Tits. Along
the marshy lagoon were two Spotted Crakes, Jack Snipes, a Bittern (!), a
Citrine Wagtail and to top off this amazing place were a fine male
Desert Wheatear (about the 5th recent record for Azerbaijan) on the beach and a Yellow-browed
Warbler in the bushes along the beach - a first for Azerbaijan!

​​Mountain Chiffchaff

Jack Snipe

​​Black Vulture

​​Moustached Warbler common along the wet part of the bush land/lagoon

​​A fine male Desert Wheatear on the beach at Besh

A putative tristis Chiffchaff...?

Some 60 Little Bustards rested in the steppe at Besh

​hemprichii Siberian Stonechat

A
day trip on 29 Oct to Shirvan Nationalpark was also very nice with for
example 9 Bewick´s Swan, 63 Marbled Ducks, 18 Ferrugineous Ducks, 9 Hen
Harriers, 12 Purple Swamphens, 2 White-tailed Lapwings, both
Short-eared, Long-eared and Little Owls and a Citrine Wagtail. A short
visit inland to Haji Gaboul showed us a dried-out lake with a thousand
dabbling ducks standing at a tiny pool in the middle of the vast lake
and some gulls and waders around, notably a 1cy Black-legged Kittiwake
which would probably be only the third record for Azerbaijan. Also a
flock of 45 Little Bustards near the lake.

Donnerstag, 26. März 2015

After the awful dump at Besh Barmag we drove via Quba into the Greater Caucasus in order to see a much nicer landscape. Our plan was to reach Xinaliq regardless the possible snow cover or expected cold temperatures high up in the mountains. Nobody of us has ever been there in winter, so we were pretty excited.
The first kilometres offered us brilliant views of the Caucasian winter, but we missed the birds along the road in the lower forested altitudes. We saw mainly Blackbirds, Mistle Thrushes and three Goshawks.

Above the tree layer we had a spectacular sighting of a Lammergeier that was circling above a canyon at about 1.500 m asl. At the same location we observed 35 Red-billed Choughs, 1 Ring Ouzel, some European Goldfinches and a surprising Great Grey Shrike. As it was already late we drove down to our hotel where we spent the night.

The next morning started with freezing cold -6°C and a calling Black Woodpecker. We headed further to the ancient village Xinaliq. Along the road we saw two beautiful Horned Larks and our first birding stop in the village Cek produced great views of a Wallcreeper and 4 Alpine Accentors. Along the river we saw several White-throated Dippers.

The asphalted road led us further to Xinaliq and arriving there we were happy that we had no trouble with snow and the sun warmed us with about +6°C. The weather conditions above 2.000 m asl were much more comfortable than in the lowland. A little hike up to 3.000 m asl produced more sightings of Lammergeiers, Griffon Vultures, Horned Larks, 27 Chukars, 42 Alpine and about 220 Red-billed Choughs. We also observed the spectacular hunting of up to 3 Golden Eagles preying on Caucasian Snowcocks at Qizil Qaya.
After a long day we left Xinaliq in the evening and had once again a comfortable night in our hotel.

The following day we drove down to Qusar, where we checked orchards and arable land for some wintering species. Besides the common species we were really happy to see two quite tame Red-fronted Serins. Until these two individuals, we had only disappointing observations of this species. Another big disappointment was that we had no observation of Pine Buntings, which was one of the highlights from our last winter birding trip. Near Qusar, we saw about 120 Yellowhammers and checked each individual carefully. At least 5 individuals showed features of both species and we logged them as possible hybrids Emberiza citrinella x leucocephalos. Another birding stop in the lowland forests of Samur-Yalama produced as a new species for the trip: a single Middle Spotted Woodpecker.

Freitag, 13. März 2015

After a night in Qəbələ we continued the way back to the coast. Unfortunately, the weather along the mountains was all but good with low clouds, rain and no visibility at all. So we couldn't enjoy the beautiful landscape. Thus birds were rare and there is nothing to tell except three Imperial Eagles along the road in Gobustan, including a pair at the nest, and a Peregrine.In the afternoon we finally reached Besh Barmag. Some birding in the bushes and at the beach quickly showed that there are a lot of birds in the area. Most prominent were of course the gulls. We pitched our tents at the traditional site to stay here for two nights. In the evening we had a nice campfire and were curious what the next day might bring. But before a little night excursion produced a flushed Short-eared Owl and, much better, a long and close observation of a Jungle Cat- great!

The next day started with early birding and walking to the dump. The camping site, the bushes, the migration watchpoint, the lagoon, these are all nice places. But to be honest, the dump is really disgusting. Streams of slaughterhouse wastewater and tons of poultry dung produce a weird scenery. But exactly therefore the place is full of birds. After several estimations we finally noted 100.000 gulls of which ~60% were large ones and ~40% heinei-Mew Gulls. They were sitting at the beach, swimming offshore and flying around in huge clouds. These clouds were building eddys down to the feeding and despite the poor quality this video gives a little impression of the
steady gull stream to the delta of the main wastewater outflow.We were wondering what the eagles and vultures might feed her. But just until an old tractor brought a hanger of dead or even more or less living chicken and dropped them off. Now we knew...The maximum count of White-tailed Eagles was 205, Black Vultures were at least 42, Black Kites about 30 and also each a handful of Griffon Vultures, Long-legged Buzzards and immature Imperial Eagles were around. Other numerous species were thousands of Rooks, hundreds of Jackdaws, 300 Grey Herons and some thousand Starlings.

Among the gulls we managed to find Azerbaijan's second Glaucous Gull (after the first one at the same site in April 2012) and the first ever Herring Gull. It was hard to get close to the huge, chaotic and rather shy mass and there might have been a lot more to find... The discussion about how much barabensis are amoung the cachinnans is still going on. But there were basically no dark birds (heuglini, fuscus) as we know from migration times.
Other birds to mention were some migrating flocks of ducks, two unidentified divers, 8 Dalmatian Pelicans and 12 Flamingos and each the only Red-breasted Merganser and Woodcock of the trip. There were quite a lot songbirds in the bushes but nothing new for the list. Very interesting and great to observe were about 10 Water Rails on just a few meters along one of the bloody creeks.

We are a small group of birders regularly vistiting Azerbaijan. In this blog we will post news about birding activities between the Caucasus and the Caspian Sea.Working in Azerbaijan for years, we had numerous first records and could update the status of many species. But as hardly any western birders visited the country yet, every trip is still exciting and produces new fascinating observations. We hope that in the future more birdwatchers will visit this great hotspot of biodiversity and join our community.

Blue-cheeked Bee-eaters at Lake Sarisu, by Kai Gauger

Send us your data! If you go birding in Azerbaijan, we are interested in your observations. An online data base is available now. For more information and if you need tips for organising a successful tour, please contact us at birdingaze "at" yahoo.com.

Azerbaijan links

Disclaimer

1. Content. The author reserves the right not to be responsible for the topicality, correctness, completeness or quality of the information provided. Liability claims regarding damage caused by the use of any information provided, including any kind of information which is incomplete or incorrect, will therefore be rejected. Parts of the pages or the complete publication including all information might be extended, changed or partly or completely deleted by the author without separate announcement. 2. Referrals and links. The author is not responsible for any contents linked or referred to from his pages - unless he has full knowledge of illegal contents and would be able to prevent the visitors of his site from viewing those pages. If any damage occurs by the use of information presented there, only the author of the respective pages might be liable, not the one who has linked to these pages. Furthermore the author is not liable for any postings or messages published by users of discussion boards, guestbooks or mailinglists provided on his page. 3. Copyright. The author intended not to use any copyrighted material for the publication or, if not possible, to indicate the copyright of the respective object. The copyright for any material created by the author is reserved. Any duplication or use of objects such as images, diagrams, sounds or texts in other electronic or printed publications is not permitted without the author's agreement. 4. Privacy policy. The use of published postal addresses, telephone or fax numbers and email addresses for marketing purposes is prohibited, offenders sending unwanted spam messages will be punished. 5. Legal validity of this disclaimer. This disclaimer is to be regarded as part of the internet publication which you were referred from. If sections or individual terms of this statement are not legal or correct, the content or validity of the other parts remain uninfluenced by this fact.